On 16 and 17 January 2019 the first SPIDER WEB project team meeting was held in Lelystad, The Netherlands. The meeting was hosted by IMPEL Board member John Visbeen of the Association of the Dutch Provinces and IMPEL Nature Protection Expert Team leader. The team consisted of IMPEL project manager Nancy Isarin, Waste Expert Fraser Allan, Nature Expert Jaap Reijngoud, and Communications Expert Ellen Greve. In addition, the meeting was attended by Vittoria Luda di Cortemiglia, representing sustainability consultancy SOFIES.
The project team discussed the first phase of SPIDER WEB:
- For the baseline study, the desk research has started with the analysis of the legal framework of the different countries, and reports covering the level of implementation. Main sources for this exercise are the EC progress reports, UNECE documents, UNEP and other official documents. The desk review will be completed by the end of February.
- For the Training Needs Assessment, research objectives and specific focus were set (namely CITES, Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions; EU Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC, EU Habitat Directive 92/43/EEC, EU Bird Directive 2009/147/EC, Timber Regulations, Environmental Crime Directive 2008/99/EC). This part of the research will focus on the assessment of current knowledge and training needs capacities of stakeholders across the enforcement and prosecution chain. Among others, an online questionnaire will be submitted to identified stakeholders. The assessment will be completed by the end of April.
The outcome of the baseline study and Training Needs Assessment will be used to prepare a set of 6 training courses to be organised by IMPEL in the 6 target countries Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo*, Montenegro and Serbia. The training courses will take place in May, June, July, and September 2019. A consultation group comprising of IMPEL contact points (including authorities, experts and NGO representatives) in the different countries will be created to support in the organisation of the training sessions.
An online training manual or toolkit will pull together the key areas of learning from the training courses and will made available to all stakeholders in September 2019.
Nancy Isarin (IMPEL Project Manager): “IMPEL is happy to be working with GIZ on this project as we believe capacity building and awareness raising is critical to the effective prevention of environmental crime in the Western Balkan region. IMPEL as network stands for sharing knowledge and best practices between countries and regions and for learning from each other. Focusing on the Western Balkans for training and sharing serves as a great example of this approach.”
IMPEL is planning to organise a workshop in Ljubljana in April for the presentation of the findings of the baseline study and the Training Needs Assessment. The workshop will entail about 20 persons, including members of the consultative group. Dates and venue will be confirmed as soon as possible.
At the end of the project, both reports will be made publicly available on the SPIDER WEB project page on the IMPEL website.
